some digital questions

[Godfrey]

I'd like to check a few things:

1) It seems in digital colour photography, you should expose as far to the right as you can without blowing the highlights. This makes the highlights (and the rest of the pic) overexposed, so you have to work on the pic in post processing ending up with detail in the highlights and less noise in the shadows.

2) It seems that in colour photography, you should expose for the highlights and develop of the shadows. This makes the highlights retain detail but allows the shadows to be dark but retain some detail.

Yes?

3) Setting the "Highlight tone" and the "Shadow tone" on a digital camera to a minus/low/soft setting makes it more likely that the pic will retain some detail in the highlights and shadows and then you have to work on the pic in post processing ending up with detail in the highlights and shadows with darker shadows to suit the pic. Thus is a bit like exposing to the right and then rescuing detail and minimising noise in the shadows.

4) Setting the "Highlight tone" to a minus/soft/low setting without altering the "Shadow tone" setting, is like exposing for the highlights but without affecting the shadows.

5) Setting the "Shadow tone" to minus/soft/low in a low light situation and then darkening the Shadows in post processing, means the shadows will have less noise than they otherwise would.

Yes?

As usual, any help would be much appreciated, even if I don't undserstand it. lol.😳

Are you shooting JPEG or RAW?

If raw the tone settings likely don't matter at all as they aren't going to be applied to the RAW file, only jpeg.

If JPEG you probably don't want to ETTR and you would set the tone settings in a way that gives you are JPEG you like as is. JPEGs aren't as malleable as raw so you want to get it relatively close at capture time. JPEGs are 8 bits. Current sensors can capture more than 8 bits of dynamic range. The tone settings are all about how you map the wider capture of the sensor into the more limited 8 bit range of the JPEG.

RAW captures the full range of the sensor and then when you post process it you make the decisions on the final output.

As Shawn says, none of these things have any meaning when it comes to capturing raw image files. I only ever capture raw image files unless the camera I'm using has no capability to do so. The last camera like that I had was about, oh, twenty years ago. For JPEG/HEIC devices like my iPhone, I just try to make the photo look the way I want on the screen.

I've heard many many expositions of what the "right" methodology for exposure might be. I harken back to my first photographic mentor when I was 13 years old:

"Forget all that nonsense. Learn to see exposure and expose correctly for whatever the scene and your intent might be. Period. It takes some time and practice..."

Go buy a camera, take pictures, make mistakes, and learn from them. 🙂

G

 

[seany65]

Thank you Shawn and Godfrey for the replies and the info. I've not fully decided on Raw OR Jpeg or Raw AND jpeg yet. I'm still in the experimental stage. I have read one review of my camera (Fuji X-S1) which suggests there's very little difference between Raw/Jpeg, but I have seen another review which suggest there's a big difference especially in low light due to the noise reduction on jpegs at very high iso - I don't know at what level the noise reduction was set to.

I'd also read that there are a few settings which can affect Raw files but I couldn't remember what they were, so that was one of the reasons I asked.

I presume the film simulation modes don't affect raw files, but they obviously affect jpegs. I've seen a review, with photos, that suggest the Astia setting has a little less contrast and colour than the Velvia and Provia ones, but the highlights on the flowers in the pics used were very bright in Velvia and looked a tiny bit blown but were not in the Astia setting. I've seen another review which suggests that Astia is more contrasty and has more colour than the Provia setting.

I mention this because it occurred to me a very short time ago that shooting both Raw and Jpeg and fiddling with the settings for jpegs would allow the jpeg to be used as a sort of "visual note" of what I wanted the end photo to look like so I would neither have to make written notes nor try and remember what my thinking had been when I finally come to work on the raw file.

 

[Godfrey]

If effects settings can influence the raw file data, then it's not really raw image data. They might influence the jpeg preview file embedded in the data ... this is fine as it is irrelevant.

The only settings that should influence raw data capture should be ISO, aperture, and shutter time. Settings like whether the raw date is compressed or not, when available, should not matter ... If they do, then it's a poor implementation and to be avoided.

I completely ignore the JPEG output of any camera I own. I make exposures in raw mode on any of my cameras, and then I import them into Lightroom Classic. I evaluate them for what I captured — whether it met my intent or not — and then I render them to what my mind's eye was looking for if the exposures pass muster. That's it.

That's what I do. It saves a lot of wasted energy (and time) trying to figure out what will work best in theory and gets down to the point of making photos, making mistakes, and learning from them. That's how you learn to make photographs that satisfy you.

G

 

[shawn]

The EXR settings will impact raw files.

When everything goes well JPEGs can be reasonably close to RAW if you don't do much more to a raw file. When things go wrong RAW is much more flexible. For example if the auto white balance gets thrown off you can fix that easily in RAW. You can tweak it in JPEG but if you go to far it will cause other issues. Raw typically has more highlight headroom so you can recover blown highlights that are gone if you blow the highlights in a JPEG.


Forget reading reviews about the different film simulations and someone elses interpretations. Put the camera on a tripod and shoot the same thing with every film simulation. Or if the camera allows you to process raw onboard shoot it in raw and then process it to jpeg and try every simulation and play with the settings to see what you like.

Depending on how you process it the film simulation name will still be in the exif of the raw files. Some converters will automatically apply roughly the same preset on import. Lightroom can do this but I'm not sure if they have presets for that camera.

I tend to switch between raw and JPEG depending upon what i am doing. If they are any sort of serious shot I shoot RAW. If I am doing something like a fencing meet where I may take 1000+ shots I'll will shoot JPEG but also make sure to dial in a custom white balance and things like that to get files that work for me.

 

[shawn]

If effects settings can influence the raw file data, then it's not really raw image data. They might influence the jpeg preview file embedded in the data ... this is fine as it is irrelevant.

The only settings that should influence raw data capture should be ISO, aperture, and shutter time. Settings like whether the raw date is compressed or not, when available, should not matter ... If they do, then it's a poor implementation and to be avoided.

The EXR settings will impact RAW data since it literally changes how the camera captures from the sensor. Either full resolution, half resolution with essentially pixel binning at same exposure (EXR NR mode), or half resolution with binning at different exposure (EXR DR mode).

The other DR settings will impact raw capture too but really only so much as shooting at a different ISO than what the camera might be set to.

 

[Godfrey]

The EXR settings will impact RAW data since it literally changes how the camera captures from the sensor. Either full resolution, half resolution with essentially pixel binning at same exposure (EXR NR mode), or half resolution with binning at different exposure (EXR DR mode).

The other DR settings will impact raw capture too but really only so much as shooting at a different ISO than what the camera might be set to.

What is EXR supposed to be doing? And what is the cost for these options?

Those sound like options that should all be standard settings for the capture chip. At any rate, I've never had any camera with such settings, and not really seen much need for them. This seems a complication that only a very few will even understand, never mind use.

G

 

[shawn]

EXR was Fuji's CMOS take of their earlier SuperCCD sensors that had 2 different sensors per pixel.

EXR either shot in full resolution, pixel binned at half resolution/same exposure to lower the noise or shot in half resolution with each 'half' being exposed differently to increase DR. Fuji had EXR in a bunch of small sensor cameras including the camera seany65 is asking about.

I've had a couple of Fuji's with this and I tended to shoot them in the EXR-DR since the small sensor needed help in that area.

​

 

[Cascadilla]

Thank you Shawn and Godfrey for the replies and the info. I've not fully decided on Raw OR Jpeg or Raw AND jpeg yet. I'm still in the experimental stage. I have read one review of my camera (Fuji X-S1) which suggests there's very little difference between Raw/Jpeg, but I have seen another review which suggest there's a big difference especially in low light due to the noise reduction on jpegs at very high iso - I don't know at what level the noise reduction was set to.

I'd also read that there are a few settings which can affect Raw files but I couldn't remember what they were, so that was one of the reasons I asked.

I presume the film simulation modes don't affect raw files, but they obviously affect jpegs. I've seen a review, with photos, that suggest the Astia setting has a little less contrast and colour than the Velvia and Provia ones, but the highlights on the flowers in the pics used were very bright in Velvia and looked a tiny bit blown but were not in the Astia setting. I've seen another review which suggests that Astia is more contrasty and has more colour than the Provia setting.

I mention this because it occurred to me a very short time ago that shooting both Raw and Jpeg and fiddling with the settings for jpegs would allow the jpeg to be used as a sort of "visual note" of what I wanted the end photo to look like so I would neither have to make written notes nor try and remember what my thinking had been when I finally come to work on the raw file.

The real Astia slide film was my favorite color film when I shot color film for commercial clients. It had the most consistent and accurate color reproduction of any slide film that I ever used. It wasn't as contrasty as Kodachrome or Provia and had the best flesh tones for a variety of skin types. If the simulation is accurate, that's what I would use if I were looking for a film type to emulate in digital.

 

[seany65]

Posted by Shawn. I don't know why the first line is separate from the box below it?:

EXR was Fuji's CMOS take of their earlier SuperCCD sensors that had 2 different sensors per pixel.

EXR either shot in full resolution, pixel binned at half resolution/same exposure to lower the noise or shot in half resolution with each 'half' being exposed differently to increase DR. Fuji had EXR in a bunch of small sensor cameras including the camera seany65 is asking about.

I've had a couple of Fuji's with this and I tended to shoot them in the EXR-DR since the small sensor needed help in that area.

​

These are some of the things that confuse me about Fuji's thinking: There's the EXR Resolution mode which (to me) doesn't seem to do anything with extending the range of tones the camera can record but uses all 12mp, so it it doesn't seem to have a point. The EXR Low Noise mode either dumps half of the pixels or uses two pixels as if they are one to double the amount of light each new "fake" pixel gets to lower noise and EXR Dynamic Range mode seem to dump half of the pixels but then exposes the other half in two separate halves with each half getting a different exposure so it seems each half is only getting 1/4 of the original pixels. Or something.

As far as I can tell you can only get these EXR Modes when the mode dial is at "EXR", and at present I don't see a way for the user to alter the exposure.

Then there's the "Dynamic Range" setting which is used in every exposure mode, but from what I understand from the manual, "DR 100%" is meant to increase the contrast in any photo, but "DR 200%", "DR 400%" etc. are used to increase the Dynamic Range (and it seems to me), slightly decrease the contrast range by allowing the capture of detail in the highlights like with 1 of the EXR Modes. But if you want to use settings other than "DR 100%" you have to set an ISO at twice the number of the level you want to use eg. for "DR 400%" you need to set 800 ISO.

I'm presuming all those affect Raw as well as Jpeg.

Then you've got Highlight and Shadow "tone", which have an easy to see effect even before you take the photo so you know what you're going to get, but this only affects Jpegs. At present I've no idea if these settings can be applied to the Raw photo after it has been taken, as a sort of "in camera" image processing.

So that's three ways to affect the photos but 2 only apply to Raw and the easiest one to use and see the predicted result beforehand only affects Jpegs.

Why not just have the Tone controls and have them affect the Raw photo as well as the jpeg photo?

 

[shawn]

Posted by Shawn. I don't know why the first line is separate from the box below it?:

EXR was Fuji's CMOS take of their earlier SuperCCD sensors that had 2 different sensors per pixel.

These are some of the things that confuse me about Fuji's thinking: There's the EXR Resolution mode which (to me) doesn't seem to do anything with extending the range of tones the camera can record but uses all 12mp, so it it doesn't seem to have a point. The EXR Low Noise mode either dumps half of the pixels or uses two pixels as if they are one to double the amount of light each new "fake" pixel gets to lower noise and EXR Dynamic Range mode seem to dump half of the pixels but then exposes the other half in two separate halves with each half getting a different exposure so it seems each half is only getting 1/4 of the original pixels. Or something.

No, EXR NR or DR gives you 6 megapixel files. NR pixel bins and uses the same exposure for the two pixels. Noise is uncorrelated, the signal is correlated between the two pixels so it gives you an increase in SNR. The dynamic range version shoots half of the original 12 megapixels (6 megapixels) at one exposure and the other half at a lower exposure to capture more highlight information. That gives more DR.

As far as I can tell you can only get these EXR Modes when the mode dial is at "EXR", and at present I don't see a way for the user to alter the exposure.

You might not be able to other then potentially with exposure compensation.

Then there's the "Dynamic Range" setting which is used in every exposure mode, but from what I understand from the manual, "DR 100%" is meant to increase the contrast in any photo, but "DR 200%", "DR 400%" etc. are used to increase the Dynamic Range (and it seems to me), slightly decrease the contrast range by allowing the capture of detail in the highlights like with 1 of the EXR Modes. But if you want to use settings other than "DR 100%" you have to set an ISO at twice the number of the level you want to use eg. for "DR 400%" you need to set 800 ISO.

DR100% doesn't increase contrast in any photo it simply means it isn't doing anything to expand DR.

The DR modes are not the same as the EXR modes. They work differently. Essentially, the DR modes in the Fuji's meter as if they are at a higher ISO but actually expose at a lower ISO. That means the resulting exposure is biased to capture more highlights. That is why you have to set the ISO higher.

DR200 makes you set the camera to ISO 400 (assuming base is ISO200). The camera meters and acts as if it is shooting at ISO400 but it actually captures at ISO200 behind the scenes, so essentially a stop of underexposure to captre more highlights. DR400 does the same except meters at ISO800 but actually shoots at ISO200 behind the scenes for 2 stops of underexposure. The camera then applies a tone curve to the files when it makes a JPEG and flags the RAW for the resulting raw developer to do the same later on.

The DR modes don't alter resolution at all as it is all about underexposure.

And to get really confusing I think the Fuji will let you combine DR and EXR-DR....

I'm presuming all those affect Raw as well as Jpeg.

Yes.

Then you've got Highlight and Shadow "tone", which have an easy to see effect even before you take the photo so you know what you're going to get, but this only affects Jpegs. At present I've no idea if these settings can be applied to the Raw photo after it has been taken, as a sort of "in camera" image processing.

Hit play on your camera and when it is displaying the RAW file hit menu and see if you have the option to process the RAW file. If so it should give you those settings. Lots of Fujis have this ability, I don't know if you camera has this or not, RTFM.

Why not just have the Tone controls and have them affect the Raw photo as well as the jpeg photo?

Because the entire point of RAW is to give you the raw output from the sensor without baking any choices into it. If that isn't what you want shoot JPEG.

 

[Godfrey]

I only had one Fuji camera ... can't remember which model ... but I found it so annoying I sold it within a month. Confusing manual, confusing controls, rather poor rendering on the raw converters of that day other than on Fuji's dedicated raw converter. I haven't been interested in a Fuji camera since.

I know a lot of other folks seem to love them. Eh? To each their own. Olympus, Nikon, Leica, Canon, Pentax, and Panasonic have all done better for me.

G

 

[seany65]

Shawn, thanks yet again for the reply and extra info. There may be the slightest possibility that there could be a tiny chance that, in theory, I could be beginning to understand 1 or 2 things, but I wouldn't bet on it. 😳.

I don't know how to do the split quoting that you did, so:

"No, EXR NR or DR gives you 6 megapixel files. NR pixel bins and uses the same exposure for the two pixels. Noise is uncorrelated, the signal is correlated between the two pixels so it gives you an increase in SNR. The dynamic range version shoots half of the original 12 megapixels (6 megapixels) at one exposure and the other half at a lower exposure to capture more highlight information. That gives more DR."

Don't worry too much about answering these as it's possible that I'm just rambling a bit and may end up understanding it better by the end.

1) Pixel-binning to me suggests 'throwing away' the result from those pixels, your explanation seems to suggest the light signal from half of the pixels is added to the light signal from the other half of the pixels, so that in effect we have pixels that are twice the size of the ordinary pixels, but there's no room for 12mp that are twice the size of the ordinary pixels. I know it's the correct/official phrase to use, but "pixel-binning" to me seems an odd choice.

2) The Dynamic Range version of EXR is beginning to confuse me now. (Remember I'm a bear of very little brain) EXR DR gives files that are 6mp, I understand that, but if this mode exposes half of the 12mp (6mp) at one exposure and the other half of the 12mp (the other 6mp) at a lower exposure then it seems to me that it can't be combining the results of two pixels into one.

I have RTFM and there's quite a bit of stuff that doesn't really explain too much, just says "you can... see page 26" and when you get to page 26 it says "you can switch this on or off by pressing this button" without fully explaining the why's and wherefores.

Yes, you can only set DR 800 and DR 1600 in EXR D-range priority.

Hmm, is there any point using DR200% or DR 400% if also using the "Tone" controls?

Godfrey, in some things the manual is rather sparse in information and explanation, but in use I find the camera quite easy, so long as I don't bother with the Custom or EXR modes.

 

[shawn]

1) Pixel-binning to me suggests 'throwing away' the result from those pixels, your explanation seems to suggest the light signal from half of the pixels is added to the light signal from the other half of the pixels, so that in effect we have pixels that are twice the size of the ordinary pixels, but there's no room for 12mp that are twice the size of the ordinary pixels. I know it's the correct/official phrase to use, but "pixel-binning" to me seems an odd choice.

Pixel binning - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

2) The Dynamic Range version of EXR is beginning to confuse me now. (Remember I'm a bear of very little brain) EXR DR gives files that are 6mp, I understand that, but if this mode exposes half of the 12mp (6mp) at one exposure and the other half of the 12mp (the other 6mp) at a lower exposure then it seems to me that it can't be combining the results of two pixels into one.

It does, it just has to do some exposure blending between the two halves where they overlap.

I have RTFM and there's quite a bit of stuff that doesn't really explain too much, just says "you can... see page 26" and when you get to page 26 it says "you can switch this on or off by pressing this button" without fully explaining the why's and wherefores.

Yes, you can only set DR 800 and DR 1600 in EXR D-range priority.

Hmm, is there any point using DR200% or DR 400% if also using the "Tone" controls?

Yes, if shooting raw since the tone contol won't do anything. If shooting JPEG still probably since it will bias the camera to preserve highlights more.

The part that can gets confusing (in addition to all the other parts) is the DR200/DR400 don't really change the dynamic range of the sensor. They just change how the camera meters/exposes and then it tweaks the resulting jpeg file a bit so they don't look underexposed. You get more highlights captured but with the potential of more noise in the deep shadows since they are getting more underexposed and possibly boosted later on.

The EXR-DR mode does in fact increase the captured dynamic range but at the cost of half the resolution.

I have an old F300 (somewhere) that had a super CCD EXR sensor in it. I almost always had that in EXR-DR mode. It needed all the DR it could get and for that kind of camera 6 megapixels was fine.



I gave my son an X10 and that was usually in EXR-DR mode as well.

BTW, to do the fancy quoting you just go into the quote and hit return and it will break it into pieces.

 

[seany65]

Thanks for the extra info Shawn. I still think "Pixel binning" is the wrong phrase to use. I'd think "Pixel resizing" is a little closer to what's done.

Hmmm, if using DR 200% with "Soft" or "Medium Soft" highlight tone on a jpeg would officially give 1 stop under exposure and a bit more under exposure because of the soft or medium soft tone, would using a "Medium soft" setting for the shadow tone have the effect of increasing the exposure for the shadows before the jpeg was taken so the the shadows wouldn't actually be underexposed by the DR 200% setting, and so avoid the noise?

Godfrey, I found a clear example in the manual of what I was talking about when I said the manual doesn't always explain things:
The manual says the camera has a setting for "Intelligent Digital Zoom" but does not give the slightest clue on how to switch it on. It would be nice to be able to experiment with it. I'll probably try hitting the camera with a hammer to see if that does the trick, lol.

 

[seany65]

I recently saw a set of graphs for a range of cameras showing various aspects. One of these graphs was showing the range of tones, expressed in stops, that each camera could produce at various iso speeds. the range for my Fujifilm X-S1 was a smidge over 6 stops at 100 iso. I was wondering if this changes if I have the highlight tone set down 2 steps from Standard to Soft, and the shadow tone down one step from Standard to Medium Soft?

 

[Godfrey]

I recently saw a set of graphs for a range of cameras showing various aspects. One of these graphs was showing the range of tones, expressed in stops, that each camera could produce at various iso speeds. the range for my Fujifilm X-S1 was a smidge over 6 stops at 100 iso. I was wondering if this changes if I have the highlight tone set down 2 steps from Standard to Soft, and the shadow tone down one step from Standard to Medium Soft?

Try it and see.

G

 

[seany65]

Godfrey, I did consider that, but as I'm not sure exactly how each level in the hard/soft tone controls is supposed to compare to each stop of tonal range the camera can produce, eg. does going from "standard" down to "Medium Soft" in the highlight tone equal increasing the Tonal Range the camera can produce by one stop from 6 stops to 7 stops or does it change it by 1/2 a stop? How do these changes affect the camera's ability to work with the gray scale? If I soften both highlights and shadows by two steps does that mean the camera now has a tonal range of 10 stops, and what if I also set the iso to 800 and get a DR setting of 400% does that mean the camera can now show a range of 12 stops? What if I also use the "Astia" film setting which is less contrasty than the Velvia setting, does that change the total tonal range to 13 stops?

More importantly, how would I be able to measure whatever results I get? I understand the images will be less contrasty, but how would I measure the stops in the tonal range?

😡 Bah! I just knew I'd think of ever more crap to think about and question! It's alright for you Godfrey, I have to put up with this "brain" of mine all the ruddy time. 😳 lol.

 

[shawn]

The tone controls don’t change dynamic range of the sensor. They just change how the sensors dynamic range is mapped into 8bit jpeg file.

 

[seany65]

I see. Thanks shawn. Hmmm, do the "Dynamic Range" stuff (EXR and DR100%-DR400% etc.) also only change the way the sensor's dynamic range is mapped to the 8bit peg file?

 

[shawn]

The exr actually increases dynamic range at the cost of resolution. The DR200/400 doesn’t really change dynamic range but biases the camera to try to preserve highlights more. Both of those will effect the raw files, it isn’t just about making the sensors output onto the jpeg.

That camera is pretty limited in dr, about 7 stops at base iso.

If it were my camera I would use the Exr mode.